Yesterday, I stepped into the world of The Hobbit. I stood in Smaug the Dragon’s cavernous lair. I cowered as the gigantic beast towered over me. The chance to go face-to-face with one of the most impressive CG creatures ever created, rendered using the most advanced graphics card in the world, is a pretty incredible experience.

18 December 2014

J. R. R. Tolkien’s posthumousThe Silmarillion describes the universe where The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place. It has all the secrets of Middle Earth, from individual characters to the genesis of wizards, elves, orcs, or men. This must-watch short explainer reveals its crucial elements in four minutes.

24 October 2014

Air New Zealand loves to make fun in-flight safety videos that can include anything from body paint to supermodels to Richard Simmons to Betty White. This time though, they have gone beyond epic: the safety video is basically a full on LOTR and Hobbit movie set in Middle Earth. It’s impressive.

18 October 2014

Few movies rival the intensity — or duration — of the extended cuts of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. But you know, we don’t all have time to sit around developing carbuncles so obscene they’d make a trauma surgeon faint. When your moments (and unwounded body) are precious, you need clips like this one. Yes, it’s The Hobbit, the whole story, condensed into 72 seconds. Spoiler warning for those who haven’t read the book!

24 April 2014

As animation supervisor at Weta Digital, Dave Clayton knows a thing or two about creating virtual worlds. To celebrate the launch of The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug on DVD and Blu-ray, we had a quick chat with Dave about some of the work he’s done with Weta.

20 December 2013

On Tuesday night I caught an advance screening of The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug which opens in Australia on Boxing Day. Read on for the definitive Kotaku review! (If you’re wondering what this has to do with video games, just look at any one of the roughly 26,000 fantasy RPGs in existence and quit yer belly-aching.)

4 December 2013

If you fit into the piece of the Venn diagram between “Fans of The Hobbit,” “Microsoft Users,” and “Folks Who Have a 3D Printer,” Microsoft and Warner Bros. UK have a treat: On December 13th, when the second Hobbit movie debuts, you’ll be able to download plans to 3D print your own souvenir: the Key to Erebor.

27 November 2013

DVD Extras are awesome. They’re probably the only reason people buy physical copies of films these days: all that sweet additional content. Martin Freeman in his role as Bilbo Baggins has been trying to foul up the place when it comes to the behind-the-scenes extras on The Hobbit, by giving the finger to the filmmakers whenever they roll tape. This supercut shows off his best antics.